Poster #57 - Examining the link Between Maltreatment and Child Psychopathology: The Roles of Language and Self-Regulation

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Maltreatment (i.e. abuse and neglect) is associated with a number of negative developmental outcomes including increased internalizing and externalizing symptomatology (e.g. Moylan et al., 2010). Previous work has found that children’s ability to regulate their own emotions mediates the link between maltreatment and internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Heleniak et al., 2016). However, pathways linking the experience of maltreatment to self-regulatory abilities are less clear. Work with more typically-developing samples has found that language is positively associated with components of self-regulation (i.e. inhibitory control) and that performance on task-based measures of inhibitory control mediates the relation between child language ability and child behavior difficulties (Peterson, Bates, & Staples, 2015). Child maltreatment is associated with deficits in receptive language (e.g. Valentino et al., 2015). Thus, the current study investigated 1) whether child receptive language mediates associations between maltreatment and child inhibitory control and 2) whether the link between maltreatment and child internalizing and externalizing symptoms is mediated by the effect of child language on inhibitory control. It was hypothesized that child language would be positively associated with inhibitory control and that this association would mediate the relation between maltreatment and both child internalizing and externalizing symptomatology.
Data were collected from 248 mothers and their three- to seven-year-old children. 164 of these dyads had a documented history of maltreatment with the mother being named as a perpetrator. Maltreatment status was verified with the Maltreatment Classification System (MCS; Barnett, Manly, & Cicchetti, 1993) using child welfare records. The remaining dyads were demographically similar to the dyads in the maltreatment group but did not have any history of involvement with the department of child services. Receptive vocabulary was assessed using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test 4th Edition (PPVT-4; Dunn & Dunn, 2007) which provided an assessment of children’s receptive language. Child inhibitory control was assessed based on children’s performance on the Day/Night task (Gerstadt et al., 1994). Children’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms were assessed via the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997), which provides a parent-report measure of children’s typical behaviors.
Mplus (version 7.4) was used to test a serial mediation model in which the link between maltreatment and child internalizing and externalizing behavior is explained by the association from child receptive language to inhibitory control (see figure 1). Nonparametric, bias-corrected bootsrapping with 1,000 re-samples was used and the model was saturated. Results indicated that there was a significant indirect effect of child maltreatment on child inhibitory control through language (95% CI [-2.87, -1.09]). Further, there was a significant indirect effect of maltreatment on child internalizing behavior through the pathway from child receptive language to inhibitory control (95% CI [.03, .24]). However, this pathway was not significant for externalizing behavior (95% CI [-.02, .18]).
These results indicate that difficulties with child language may play an important role in maltreated children’s self-regulation and emotional adjustment. Thus, it is important to consider children’s receptive language when targeting children’s self-regulation skills and/or internalizing symptoms in the context of maltreatment. Additional implications and future directions are discussed.

Authors

• Kaitlin Fondren, University of Notre Dame
  Presenting Author

• Ruth Speidel, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin Valentino, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author